SURVIVING Motherhood?!

So, a few years ago I was in an Early Childhood class and a fellow Mom was sharing how she loved this show called "Surviving Motherhood". Now, I've never seen an episode; it may be a fabulous show, but the title of the show immediately turned me off. 'Surviving'?! To me that implies that somehow motherhood is this monster that one needs to ward off. Certainly it is a challenge, but surviving?! I left that class and happened to get time with my dear friend, Anne (name changed). Obviously we're dear friends for many reasons, but it was cemented when her first comment to me was about how appalled she was by the concept of "surviving" motherhood....yup, kindred spirits! We continued to discuss the concept....we don't want to to get to the "other side" (when our kids are grown) and look back and think "Whew! We survived." Sure, we'd like to still be standing, but we wanted MORE than that...we want to thrive, enjoy, rejoice in motherhood! So, for the last few years that's what we've been doing. Has it been easy? Nope. Have we always gotten to the end of the day and thought, "Great job, Mom?" Nope. Have we wanted to throw in the towel and resign our selves to 'surviving'? Yup. But, we've encouraged one another. We've taken time to live an examined life. We've made mistakes, we've apologized, we've helped each other when our resolve was low....and I can tell you...it has been TOTALLY worth it. I can only speak for myself, but as I look back over the past few years I can honestly say that I haven't just 'survived', I've thrived. I've LOVED being a Mom. Now, I'm in a new season of my life. I have four little ones (Finn age 8, Kiki age 6, Leve age 3, TJ is 13 mo.). I homeschool, work part time at our church, I own my own Wedding and Event planning business, and my husband lives and works 2.5 hours away. He has been gone for 2.5 months and there have been days where I have felt I was drowning in housework, church work, wedding work, diapers, meals, schooling...I felt like I was merely surviving...and it terrified me! This blog is a response to that fear. By taking a closer look at what I'm doing and encouraging others to enjoy mothering I pray to get my own life on track....you can see we'll definitely be doing this together! So, that's what this blog is all about....ENJOYING motherhood. Let's ENJOY together!